B2B marketers must tell their CEOs to stop playing golf.

Today’s smart B2B marketers develop strategic, integrated marketing plans that make strong offers to targeted markets using the right channels, the right messaging and the right design. They track results, then adjust campaigns to grow and maximize those results.

These plans are carefully crafted and incorporate the latest in B2B marketing best practices. These marketers are proud of their diligent work and begin to execute the programs based on their plan.

Then their CEO goes golfing.

The very next day, that CEO walks into the marketer’s office requesting changes to the campaigns based on the great advice gotten from a peer on the golf course. Advice like:

• “When I run political campaigns, here’s what I do.”
• “How come you’re not doing this?”
• “You should do what this consultant told us to do.”

If there’s a B2B marketer out there who has never experienced this, my congratulations. For the rest of us, we must resort to the only approach we can use to educate the misguided CEO we dare not insult.

• Be ready to defend each strategy based on best practices supported by third-party sources.
• Show what market leaders in their industry are doing.
• Show what has been tested in the past that supports the current recommendations.
• Offer to test the CEO’s wacky ideas (in a small test panel to minimize the damage).
• Remind the CEO that all of the strategies are based on acceptable cost-per-lead and cost-per-sale numbers.
• Show the CEO the negative financial impact of using his or her ideas, if unsuccessful.

This problem is not confined to golfing buddies. Influential, but bad, advice can come from spouses, neighbors, college chums and a full assortment of people who have access to the CEO’s ear but know nothing about B2B marketing.

So be prepared to correct this bad advice at any time. After all, telling the CEO to stop golfing is a lot harder to do.

The dollars and sense of inbound vs. outbound marketing.

The economic downturn over the past few years has driven many talented yet unemployed people to start their own businesses. These folks take their years of experience and offer it to other businesses through their own specialty consulting or service firm — a firm that they must then market.

Just such an individual contacted me last week. He wanted to generate leads and business via outbound email marketing; however, after learning that he has a few clients, a relatively short buy cycle and a very limited budget, I recommended that he use inbound marketing and supplement it with personal outbound phone calls to his highly targeted B2B market.

OUTBOUND
Email marketing is relatively low cost when a company has built a pipeline of leads and handles its own email distribution via marketing automation. But for outbound marketing (that is going to a targeted B2B list) the costs add up fast.

Quality outbound email marketing lists (those that are made of real subscribers to an online publication and are therefore fully opt-in and have been profiled) cost from $400-$700 per thousand. Most of these top-quality lists require a 5000-name minimum, which raises the list cost to $2000 to $3500. Marketing professionals, including me, recommend testing more than one list at a time. Testing allows marketers to learn which list performs best and gives them the insight to improve the success of each subsequent marketing effort. Testing just two lists brings the cost up to $4000-$7000. If a marketer wants to maximize the success of the program, the message should be written and designed by professionals, which adds to the cost as well.

As a result of these higher upfront costs, many marketers avoid the outbound direct mail channel. Yet it is still one of the most powerful channels for B2B lead generation if done according to best practices. That means that, for lead generation, the mailing quantity must be large enough to deliver a response rate that is statistically valid so the results are repeatable on future mailings. In the B2B world this could be a minimum of 10,000 prospects at a typical cost of $1 each and up. For companies selling high-end enterprise systems, this approach is affordable and productive. But not for small start-ups.

INBOUND
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is very affordable for the small and start-up business. Good-quality Web site SEO can be obtained for as little as $250 per month. Pay-per-click ads — depending on the market, keywords, etc. — can range from as little as $250 to $1000 per month or more. The same general costs apply to content syndication. Social media costs little in dollars but can cost much in time for a one-person business if done properly. There are many other elements in a comprehensive inbound marketing program, but, for small start-ups, it’s a cost-effective option.

OUTBOUND AGAIN
In addition, however, I recommended that this new business owner not wait exclusively for inbound efforts to make his phone ring. I advised him to identify companies that meet his very targeted profile and pick up the phone and call them or send them individual letters.

As I’ve said many times before, no single marketing approach can stand on its own, B2B marketers. That’s why dollars and sense enter into our marketing decisions.

To increase B2B marketing response, increase response options.

Many of the best practices I promote for use in email nurturing campaigns, on Web sites, and in offer content come from my direct mail marketing experience. One such practice has been proven effective over and over and over — including a mail-back reply device.

In a direct mail marketing communication, 20% of the replies ALWAYS come from the reply device if there is one. This is true even if the mailing is going to titles that spend their lives online such as CIOs and other top IT management.

Why does this work? Because every person likes to do things their own way. By giving prospects more ways to respond, marketers increase the chances that people will find the response avenue that meets their personal style.

What does this mean to B2B marketers?

Marketers conducting lead generation or nurturing campaigns by offering free informational content should include their phone number and an email address to give the prospect the option to interact with the company making the offer. This is important because prospects that are already researching solutions and are further along in the buying cycle may have other questions and may want to engage with someone at the same time the offer is accepted. That’s why phone numbers and email addresses must be prominent on Web sites, in Webinar invites, on trade show booth invites and all other marketing communications.

Many marketers may respond that the prospect can just go to the Web site to find the contact info. But why make it MORE difficult for a prospective customer to respond?

Putting phone numbers and email addresses on sites that mass market — or on many types of e-commerce sites — may not make sense. But for businesses selling complex, high-ticket items with a long buying cycle, it is a necessity if those businesses want to increase response to their marketing.

My 5 favorite B2B marketing numbers.

Everyone, except perhaps the creative folks in advertising agencies, knows that marketing is a numbers game. Numbers such as click-thrus, cost-per-lead, cost-per-sale and ROI dominate the landscape of marketing discussions.

I like numbers. They measure the real market success (or failure) of B2B marketing campaigns, they support the argument for following best marketing practices, and they give marketers real insight into the cost and potential value of various marketing approaches.

So, it makes sense to share my 5 favorite numbers to help other marketers experience the confidence and the joy that numbers bring to the strategic process. I didn’t devise these numbers. But after years of knowing them, I cannot honestly remember whose testing and research discovered them in the first place. They are:

1. The value of following up with leads immediately: 88% of people are happy to hear from the B2B vendor within 24 hours of downloading informational content. Waiting 96 hours drops that percentage to the 40s.
2. The reason nurturing leads is critical in maximizing sales: 45% of new leads generated will buy from someone in the industry category within 12 months.
3. One big argument for integrated outbound marketing: Qualified B2B direct mail lists consistently provide 60% more records, business profiles and demographics than email marketing lists.
4. Making sure the results of marketing tests are statistically valid: When testing one list or channel against another, the results of the test can be considered minimally statistically valid only if the response to each individual test cell is 85 responses or higher.
5. Where to focus efforts in B2B marketing campaigns: Out of 100%, the elements that affect the outcome of a B2B marketing campaign carry the following weights List/Media/Data = 40%, Offer = 30%, Design = 15% and Copy = 15%.

Marketers building strategies and plans for the remainder of the year and beyond should let the numbers be their guide.

Three Questions All B2B Marketing Should Answer in Eight Seconds or Less

B2B marketers who are interested in how to improve the performance of their email lead generation and nurturing will find no dearth of posts, white papers, studies, and reports on the subject. Many are excellent and informative.

But this morning Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, posting for Media Post’s Email Insider, pared the insight and best practices down to three simple steps: “Three Questions Your Email Should Answer In Eight Seconds Or Less.”

Their focus is on emailing subscribers, but their advice applies to all B2B email marketing.

1. What is this email about?
2. Why should the prospect, customer, subscriber care about it?
3. What should they do about it?

The post then goes on to give examples of each of these important points in different types of email marketing messages.

Madison and Harmon state that “subscribers spend just eight seconds on most messages before clicking through or navigating away.” That’s why it’s so critical that prospects and customers quickly understand what is being offered and what they can do to get it.

What Madison and Harmon have presented, however, goes way beyond email marketing. It’s advice that should be applied universally to B2B marketing messages in all channels — direct mail marketing, banners and search engine advertising, print advertising, and yes, even social media.

Business buyers are busy. They don’t want to be wooed or romanced. They want information and they want it fast. By following Madison and Harmon’s advice, B2B marketers can improve the performance of ALL their marketing efforts.

Does your Website fail to deliver these 3 basics?

Helping a newly formed B2B company create their first Website spurred me to visit dozens of sites in search of examples I could show them from their industry that follow best practices.

In the process, I made a sad discovery. Not one followed what I know are the most basic rules of good Web design.

The rules (that is — what should be on the page and where) are the ones I learned from Amy Africa of EightbyEight. Her firm specializes in helping e-commerce companies maximize online sales. They have conducted hundreds of hours of research that monitors how people’s eyes move through a Web page, how they navigate, and even how their pulse reacts to what they see. The rules are built on the results of this research.

The way people interact with Websites does not change even if the site is a B2B company with no e-commerce involved (although Amy has reported that experienced visitors interact somewhat differently from novices).

A Website is important. It should be a strong part of every company’s integrated marketing program. It is often the first place prospective customers go to find out if the company that has contacted them or that they’ve heard about is real and legitimate. Companies conduct Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) for the sole purpose of driving prospects to their site.

But what does the viewer experience at most sites? Hard work and confusion. What visitors want is information that they can gain without effort. So here are just the very basic rules for a B2B company to make its Website a strong player in its integrated marketing programs:

Rule #1:
The first 50 words of copy on the landing page must convey what the company, service, or product is about and hopefully its unique selling advantage. The page must instantly answer the question “Where am I?” Pages with no written message but only links to other pages force visitors to work to find answers to this question. Visitors should never be made to work.

Rule #2:
Navigation must be clear and instantly imply what kind of information will be found on the linked pages. If the navigation says “Services,” the page had better list the services available from the company. Marketers should look at their navigation and make sure it is clear and correct.

Rule #3:
Every page must have at least one call-to-action. Just like a meeting with a sales person, after prospects learn something, you must ask them to do something. The call-to-action can be “Learn more,” “Contact us now,” “Download FREE content,” “Request a bid” or many other options. A Website is no different from any other B2B marketing effort. It needs to respond to the prospect’s inquiry of “What’s in it for me,” then get the prospect to act.

There are, of course, dozens of other Website best practices. However, if B2B marketers can achieve just these three, they’ll be putting their site way ahead of most others.

To make big B2B marketing strides in 2010 – go lateral.

Since September of 2008 every one of us in B2B marketing, or frankly, in every area of business, has been pressured to cut costs, do more with less, and generate and convert enough new customers to remain profitable and grow.

These days, however, companies are running out of ways to cut costs and have reached the bare bones of personnel. So what’s next? I suggest an exercise in lateral marketing.

Originally coined by Edward de Bono in his 1967 book “New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking in the Generation of New Ideas,” lateral thinking takes planning and strategy beyond the realm of problem-solving and into new ways of looking at things.

What is lateral marketing? It’s simply applying lateral thinking to the marketing arena. It’s the exercise that has marketers looking at their business and seeing if they can discover a new product name, a new approach, a new positioning that will open up a fresh universe of prospects and buyers, or an innovative way to reach existing markets.

Most marketers think in a linear fashion. Ask a linear marketer to promote property management software for real estate agents, and that marketer will (hopefully) follow best practices. In most cases, that approach will be successful. It would include:

• Offering free valuable content to generate leads using email or direct mail.
• Running ads in publications read by realtors, and posting ads on sites visited by realtors.
• Researching keywords and enhancing site SEO so that realtors find the software site when searching for related solutions.
• Putting up a booth at a trade show or conference attended by realtors.
• Establishing the real estate software company as a real estate agent’s thought leader by starting a blog and actively sharing valuable ideas via social media.

Lateral marketers, on the other hand, look at challenges in less obvious ways. They try to see the product and market with fresh eyes. They brainstorm with the company’s staff and other associates. They bring in outsiders with no preconceived understanding of that particular product or market. They look at the marketing of products or services completely outside of the client’s industry and category to see what could be borrowed or adapted. In the case of the property management software, this might include the following:

• Thinking about all the other products and services that realtors use, such as appraisers, lenders, and CPAs, then asking those providers to become trading partners, i.e., “You mention my product to your customers and I’ll mention your services to mine.” If the real estate software company sells nationally and the providers sell locally, partnerships could be established in multiple cities.
• Creating an online contest that invites real estate agents to take a self-quiz to find out whether they could make more money by adding property management to the services they provide. All those who took the self-quiz would be entered into a drawing to receive a valuable prize. This self-quiz would generate a list of email addresses of real estate agents who have shown interest in property management and therefore should be considered prospective buyers.
• Spinning off the product with a new name that would appeal to real estate investors who might want to save money by managing their own properties. This move would open up a whole new market of prospects.

 B2B marketers should not abandon linear marketing, but to make big strides in 2010 and beyond, they should try going lateral.

My “duh” moment on the vital need for both inbound AND outbound B2B marketing.

A colleague of mine who is a commission salesperson flew back East yesterday after an invitation from a prospective customer to make a presentation to his company. The prospect has a problem that my colleague’s company can solve.

This invitation didn’t follow a referral. There wasn’t a formal request for proposal (RFP). The prospect didn’t find my colleague’s company through social media. It wasn’t a B2B lead generated by SEO, SEM or a banner. In fact, it wasn’t even a lead generated by B2B email marketing, direct mail marketing, a trade show booth visit or an ad.

It was generated by a cold call that my colleague made to the company.

I’m not pooh-poohing the value of any of the above marketing channels. But this cold call — that led to an in-person presentation — was my “duh” moment on the difference between inbound and outbound B2B lead generation.

Companies have problems. There are so many aspects in the operation of a successful business, or even in a given department of that business, that the most painful problems are addressed first. Inbound marketing benefits when a company is pursuing a solution for its most painful problem. It is then that prospects actively research solutions on the Web, follow experts on social media, visit Web sites, read paid search ads, ask colleagues for referrals and send out RFPs.

But those companies that have problems they’ve pushed to the back burner because of more urgent ones are not actively pursuing a solution. Then, voila , an email or direct mail letter appears. Some are likely to think “here’s a white paper addressing that other problem we have. I think I’ll ask for it and see what it says.”

The company making the white paper offer will have then generated a lead that can be nurtured until that company says “this pain is big enough that we have to fix it now.” Low and behold, the company that sent the outbound marketing is already engaging with that prospect and has a huge edge.

In fact, the company my colleague is seeing was not seeking a solution. But his call alerted them to a smart way to solve a problem they knew they had. When a solution appeared, they jumped on it.

In rare occasions, perhaps, a B2B marketer knows about the pain a particular company is suffering from at that moment. Most of us in B2B marketing won’t. That’s why we have to reach out via outbound marketing AND make sure we’re reachable when the time is right.

All channels are vital. Cold calling works, too.

Is anything missing from your online B2B brand?

Last week I sat in on a great Webinar entitled “The Art of Findability” with Glenn Raines of Social Media Moves.

Hosted by the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), this informative session covered how to build a personal and business brand online using such tools as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Profiles and other tools.

Glenn knows his stuff and, thanks to him, I’m just a little more savvy about the world of social media. But it got me thinking. In the B2B marketing world, if one is successful, all these connections and all this communication ultimately includes a visit to the company Web site.

Even if there’s been a connection with prospects via social media, those prospects will still check out your company’s Web site. What will they find there? It’s surprising how many companies selling excellent B2B products or services through a sales force have a Web site that doesn’t hold up its end of the integrated marketing objective.

Sometimes just a few critical fixes can help. Here are a few of the more critical dos and don’ts that will help you better support your marketing and sales process:

DO
* Provide one or more pieces of content (white papers, newsletters, Webcasts, demos, etc.) that have value to your market. Turn some of them into lead generators by requiring visitors to register to get them. These provide the opportunity to extend the relationship that may have started on social media.

* Put a strong call-to-action on every page. Tell visitors what you want them to do next from EVERY page. Make sure most pages encourage visitors to contact you. At the same time, give them an incentive to do so – such as a free assessment, personal demo, etc.

* Clearly present your product benefits in headlines, bullets — everywhere you can. Don’t assume that because your product does its job faster, that buyers will know what that means to them. Be sure to say “save time.”

* Put your contact information prominently on every page. Especially your phone number.

DON’T
* Use the word “we.” Buyers don’t care about what you think of yourself. They care about what you can do for them. Let case studies and testimonials tell how wonderful you are.

* Ask for prospects to fill out too many fields when signing up for newsletters, to access white papers or see demos. The fewer the better.

* Assume that because you’ve maintained your “visual” brand on your Web site that the site effectively supports your brand. Messaging that is too complex, too long or too self-serving ruins a great-looking site.

Social media is a powerful tool for making business connections. The company Web site is a part of the online brand. Make sure it does its job, too.

ADDED THOUGHTS

Yesterday I came across a post that covers this same subject of technology and other B2B companies having weak Web sites that do not play a productive role in the marketing and sales process. I thought I would share links to these two articles, as they provide insight into why this is so and how to avoid it. First is Tom Jacobs on TechMarketingBlog in his post “Technology Company Websites should not be driven by technology.” The second are comments by Bill Gadless on B2B Web Strategy in a post by the same name. My thanks to Tom and Bill for this insight. The conclusion, of course, is to let marketing control the creation and updates to the company Web site. That way you can make sure the site does its job.

Boost B2B lead gen. performance by resurrecting the dead.

Mark Twain’s response when learning that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal is the now-famous quote “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” According to The Phrase Finder, “Mistaken publications of obituaries aren’t as rare as you might expect.” So it is for direct mail marketing.

Conducting a search on Google using the phrase “direct mail is dead” turns up 2,970,000 hits. Of course, not all of the articles agree that direct mail is dead, but many of them clearly make this claim.

Thank heaven for Hallie Mummert, editor in chief of Target Marketing. Her Editor’s Note in the September 2009 issue says exactly what I’ve wanted to say for a long time. Not only does she share details on the current and projected use of direct mail, but she puts a little reality into the discussion by recalling that “Television did not kill radio. Direct mail did not kill newspapers. TiVo did not kill television ads. Paid search did not kill e-mail. And e-mail will not kill direct mail. New marketing avenues might fragment marketing budgets, but so far only regulation and obsolete technology like the Federal Communications Commission’s Do Not Fax law and the fax machine itself have had the power to essentially shut down a medium.”

Why should we B2B marketers care about a medium largely perceived as a consumer marketing channel? Because direct mail works very well in the B2B world for many reasons. Here are just a few:

1. The best e-mail lists reach only 20% to 30% of the business marketplace. With direct mail you can reach more than 90%.
2. Direct mail lists allow you to target your prospects more accurately by industry, business size and title.
3. Not only do direct mail lists provide more data, but the data is often more accurate. For instance, lists of subscribers to specific vertical publications are more accurate and up-to-date.
4. Known B2B marketers still use direct mail in their marketing mix because it is a cost-effective lead generation tool. In fact, the Who’s Mailing What service, compiled by Inside Direct Mail, shows thousands of B2B marketers using the mail. Here is a small sampling of names you might recognize: SAP, Citrix, VeriSign, Novell, Sage, Epicor, Cisco Systems, Adobe, PeopleSoft, Avaya, Proxima, McAfee, Corel, Broderbund, BEA, Symantec and hundreds of others.
5. With everyone thinking the medium is dead and not using the channel, your message will truly stand out.
6. Because the monetary value of each new B2B customer is typically in the five- to six-figure range, the initial cost necessary to generate that lead is well worth it.

Once a lead is generated, it is effective to use e-mail for nurturing. But for profitable, productive lead generation, it may be time to resurrect the dead.

Addition on January 29, 2010

More stories about the importance and value of B2B direct mail appear daily. Here’s a link to the Multichannel Marketing for B2B Marketers blog and their article Direct Mail: The Comeback Kid. Read it now and learn how “Per Annum, a small firm specializing in corporate gifts, eliminated its annual direct mailing last year, and suffered a 25% drop in orders.”